Related: The Boston Globe's Invisible Ink: Top Taliban Captured
"Two Taliban leaders caught in Pakistan; Arrests follow capture of two top officials" by Dexter Filkins, New York Times | February 19, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan - Two senior Taliban leaders have been arrested in recent days inside Pakistan, officials said yesterday, as American and Pakistani intelligence agents continued to press their offensive against the group’s leadership after the capture of the insurgency’s military commander last month.
Afghan officials said the Taliban’s “shadow governors’’ for two provinces in northern Afghanistan had been detained in Pakistan by officials there....
The arrests were made by Pakistani officials, the Afghans said, but it seemed probable that CIA officers accompanied them....
Together, the three arrests mark the most significant blow to the Taliban’s leadership since the American-backed war began eight years ago. They also demonstrate the extent to which the Taliban’s senior leaders have been able to use Pakistan as a sanctuary to plan and mount attacks in Afghanistan.
A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the arrest of the two shadow governors was unrelated to Baradar’s capture. Even so....It is still far from clear, but senior commanders in Afghanistan say they believe that the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies, led by Generals Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Ahmed Shuja Pasha, may finally be coming around to the belief that the Taliban - in Pakistan and Afghanistan - constitute a threat to the existence of the Pakistani state.
“I believe that General Kayani and his leaders have come to the conclusion that they want us to succeed,’’ a senior NATO officer in Kabul said.
Word of the arrests came as....
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